ALBANY — If you're curious about what might happen were New York to actually run out of cash next month, talk to Anthony Picente. That possibility sounds a lot like his present reality.

"We're still due some money," said the Oneida County executive, referring to lags in state reimbursement for the myriad services the county funds.

One of the untold stories of New York's budget crisis is the slow but steady lengthening of the time that some counties have waited for state reimbursement.

"This is the first time that's happened," Picente of the delay, which started earlier this year. Such lags are allowed under state law, but they force affected counties to either borrow money or hold off paying organizations such as those that care for the disabled or run pre-school programs for developmentally delayed kids.

Oneida County hasn't yet borrowed money, but Warren County earlier this year took out a short-term $2.5 million loan due to payment delays.

For months, Gov. David Paterson has warned lawmakers about a looming cash crunch in December, when $4.7 billion in periodic payments from the state to localities will come due.

"We're running out of money," Paterson said Monday as he addressed the state Senate and Assembly. Lawmakers are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Monday to try once again to balance the budget.

But what exactly would it mean if the state were to run out of money?

States aren't like people or businesses — they can't declare bankruptcy during hard times and they can't print more money like the federal government. On the other hand, the state can't go stone broke in the sense of not having a penny in the proverbial till.

That's because New York gets revenue on an ongoing basis. "The checks that come in on any given day to the tax department represent an important component of the daily cash flow," said Budget Division spokesman Matt Anderson.

The most recent forecasts show the state will have $3.8 billion on hand when that $4.7 billion bill is due next month, leaving an immediate $1.1 billion shortfall.

Some of the major expenses of that $4.7 billion include $1.6 billion for schools; $521 million for state employee payroll; $349 million for Medicaid reimbursements to counties; and $1 billion for other costs borne by counties and municipalities.

There's no hard-and-fast protocol for how the state would cope with the $1.1 billion shortfall, said Anderson. Most likely, there would be juggling, with some payments being deferred to a later date.

Schools, counties, cities and towns could face a kind of reverse trickle-down that would likely require them to tap their rainy day funds or borrow money to meet their expenses.

Ironically, that could hit the smaller non-profit organizations that counties hire to provide services to people with handicaps or disabilities. The people who work there aren't state employees — many have gone without raises — and they don't have the protection of public employee unions.

Among other things, Prospect runs a pre-school for disabled kids, a health clinic and a group home for young adults who are developmentally delayed.

They've already laid off eight of the 180 employees and Gouge fears more losses may come if their funding is cut. He's also readying himself for a trip to the local bank should there be delays in state and county payments.

"For a lot of people in our industry, their relation with their banks are important," he said.

Others point to the uncertainty over how they would handle both cuts and long-term payment delays from the state were they to go on for too long.

"It's not like, "OK, we're going to have winter and pretty soon it's going to be spring'," said Warren County Health Director Patricia Auer, whose provides funds to Prospect. "It's not like that."